Alicia Kearns
Main Page: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)Department Debates - View all Alicia Kearns's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
As I outlined in my statement to the House on 20 February, we are taking increasing steps to address the threat from Iran—but, I should make clear, not to address the welcome we extend towards the Iranian people. Today of all days, we should say, “Nowruz etan Pyrouz.”
Alicia Kearns
There are three—if not seven—cut-outs of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operating here in the UK, silencing critics of the ayatollah, inciting hate, celebrating terrorists and recruiting for a terrorist state. The Government know that this House wants the IRGC proscribed, but in the immediate term, will they please protect us from transnational repression by shutting down these cut-outs of the Iranian state? I also ask the Home Secretary or the Security Minister to meet Vahid Beheshti, who is on day 26 of a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office because he wants the IRGC proscribed. I am seriously concerned about his health, and it would help if the Government were to meet him.
Tom Tugendhat
I would be very happy to meet him and, indeed, anybody else who takes the threat of the IRGC in this country as seriously as we do. We have had this work ongoing for a number of months now, and my hon. Friend will be aware that asking for actions to be taken means we must be legally compliant with the responses. That is where we are getting to; we are increasingly at the point where we are taking more and more action against the IRGC. So may I say, in the words of Omar Khayyam, in his poem for new year:
“No words about last winter can bring cheer;
don’t speak of yesterday—rejoice today.”?